Left: Water being pump out of the main entrance of Verizon's central
office at 140 West Street in Manhattan. Right: Barclay St full of water
being pumped out at the central office on the left.

Emergency cable pressurization units in front of Verizon's central
office at 140 West St. in Manhattan. The presence of these units
indicate that the presurization system on site failed, likely due to
power failure and flooding. Without presurized air, the cables in the
main cable entrance facility likely absorved significant moisture or
even water which will lead to a higher failure rate. The same issue
happened in New Orleans after Katrina. Like in Katrina, future plans in
Manhattan may involve changing copper cables for fiber optics. However,
fiber optic cables lead to a more distributed network that requires
local power in remote nodes which may make this fiber optic-based
network more vulnerable to future disasters or to significant power
outages (like the one in August 2003).

It's not a good sign when a track to vaccum out waste waters is parked
in front of central office. It likely means that this central office
suffered some flooding of sewage water (which is not too uncommon to
happen in manholes).

A good summary of a disaster area. A COLT, a person carrying supplies
from a nearby relief center, a National Guard Humvee and a police van.

Left: Greenpeace's truck with renewable sources (PV panels and a small
wind generator). Notice that the person on the truch is using a
satellite phone which indicates that at least some wireless network
operators had no coverage in this area (and at least my phone had no
signal)..Right: Two escencial needs in modern disaster areas: water and
power to charge mobile communication devices.